Mass Media as Alcohol Educator for Everyone? Effects of Portrayed Alcohol Consequences and the Influence of Viewers’ Characteristics

ABSTRACT

Many correlative and experimental studies indicate that the portrayal of alcohol in the mass media impacts viewers’ alcohol expectancies, attitudes, and behaviors. Based on social cognitive theory, the portrayed consequences and the valence of the character experiencing these consequences are important to consider when investigating the portrayal of alcohol in the mass media. However, experimental studies manipulating character valence and consequences are scarce. This study presents an experimental examination of an adult sample, manipulating the occurrence of consequences (no consequences, positive consequences, and negative consequences), as well as character valence (a positive or negative character). We investigated the effects of media portrayals on positive and negative alcohol expectancies, as well as on attitudes toward alcohol. Furthermore, the moderating role of participants’ level of alcohol consumption was considered. We found main effects only on the negative alcohol expectancies, supporting the differentiation of alcohol expectancies and attitudes. However, the valence of the depicted character did not moderate the impact of the portrayed consequences. Interaction effects of participants’ individual levels of alcohol consumption and portrayals of consequences of alcohol consumption in the mass media were uncovered. This finding has important implications for further research and prevention efforts directed at risk groups.     

Die DPG-Praxis-Studie

All psychotherapeutic methods must be scientifically evaluated. Empirical evaluation of evidence is a prerequisite for acceptance as scientific psychotherapy as well as for payment by health insurance. Currently the psychotherapy methods accepted within the German health system (behavioural therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and analytic psychotherapy) are reviewed by a governmental evaluation committee concerning evidence, necessity and cost-effectiveness. The DPG practice study has basically two aims: 1) to conduct a large naturalistic study to investigate effectiveness, sustainability and economic aspects of psychodynamic and analytic psychotherapy and 2) to offer a framework for psychoanalytic institutes, members, candidates or groups to realize own research ideas by collecting additional data within the study. The present article describes the background, main research questions, structure and design of the DPG practice study with regard to the evaluation questions.     

Cross-modal training induces changes in spatial representations early in the auditory processing pathway

In the ventriloquism aftereffect, brief exposure to a consistent spatial disparity between auditory and visual stimuli leads to a subsequent shift in subjective sound localization toward the positions of the visual stimuli. Such rapid adaptive changes probably play an important role in maintaining the coherence of spatial representations across the various sensory systems. In the research reported here, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify the stage in the auditory processing stream that is modulated by audiovisual discrepancy training. Both before and after exposure to synchronous audiovisual stimuli that had a constant spatial disparity of 15°, participants reported the perceived location of brief auditory stimuli that were presented from central and lateral locations. In conjunction with a sound localization shift in the direction of the visual stimuli (the behavioral ventriloquism aftereffect), auditory ERPs as early as 100 ms poststimulus (N100) were systematically modulated by the disparity training. These results suggest that cross-modal learning was mediated by a relatively early stage in the auditory cortical processing stream.     

What matters in implicit task sequence learning: perceptual stimulus features, task sets, or correlated streams of information?

Implicit task sequence learning may be attributed to learning the order of perceptual stimulus features associated with the task sequence, learning a series of automatic task set activations, or learning an integrated sequence that derives from 2 correlated streams of information. In the present study, our purpose was to distinguish among these 3 possibilities. In 4 separate experiments, we replicated and extended a previous study by Heuer, Schmidtke, and Kleinsorge (2001). The presence or absence of a sequence of tasks, as well as that of a sequence of different task-to-response mappings, was manipulated independently within experiments. Evidence of implicit sequence learning was found only when correlated sequences of tasks and mappings were present. No sequence learning effects were found when only a single task sequence or a single mapping sequence was present, even when the structure of the single sequence was identical to the structure of the integrated sequence of task-mapping combinations. These results suggest that implicit task sequence learning is not dependent on either perceptual learning of stimulus features or automatic task-set activation per se. Rather, it appears to be driven by correlated streams of information.     

„Insightfulness Assessment“

In this article a new method of Oppenheim and Koren-Karie (2002) is presented for the assessment of the insightfulness of parents regarding their children’s inner world. Parental insightfulness involves the capacity to see things from the child’s point of view, and is based on a) insight into the child’s motives, b) a complex view of the child and c) openness to new information about the child. Insightfulness is seen as the capacity underlying sensitive and positive parenting and providing the context for secure child-parent attachment. In the assessment of insightfulness parents view video segments of their interactions with their children and are subsequently interviewed regarding their children’s and their own thoughts and feelings during the segments. Interviews are transcribed, rated in 10 scales and subsequently classified into 1 of 4 groups. The first of the four groups indicates insightfulness while the remaining three indicate a lack of insightfulness.     

Designing for Trust: A Case of Value-Sensitive Design

In this paper, we consider the meaning, roles, and uses of trust in the economic and public domain, focusing on the task of designing systems for trust in information technology. We analyze this task by means of a survey of what trust means in the economic and public domain, using the model proposed by Lewicki and Bunker, and using the emerging paradigm of value-sensitive design. We explore the difficulties developers face when designing information technology for trust and show how our analysis in conjunction with existing engineering design methods provides means to address these difficulties. Our main case concerns a concrete problem in the economic domain, namely the transfer of control from customs agencies to companies. Control of individual items is increasingly untenable and is replaced by control on the level of companies aimed at determining whether companies can be trusted to be in control of their business and to be in compliance with applicable regulations. This transfer sets the task for companies to establish this trust by means of information technology systems. We argue that this trust can be achieved by taking into account philosophical analyses of trust and by including both parties in the trust relationship as clients for whom the information technology systems are to be designed.     

What does the child analyst bring to Jungian thought?

The author wants to show the influence that the historical acknowledgement of child therapy at the Jerusalem IAAP Congress in 1983 has had today on the Jungian world, especially on the clinical approach to their patients by analysts working only with adult patients. If her conclusions do not allow her to dissociate the strong influence on psychoanalysis of contemporary research on attachment theory and mother-child relationship from a specific Jungian child therapists' perspective, she points out, through three examples from Jungian literature, how the need for a metapsychology of development and the study of primary and personal aspects of the patient's life are explicit in the work and research of analysts working with adults.     

Comparison of the effects of four suicide prevention programs for family and friends of high-risk suicidal men who do not seek help themselves

Callers to a suicide prevention center concerned about high risk men were randomly invited to participate in one of four programs: Information Session, Information Session with Telephone Follow-up, Rapid Referral to mental health and abuse programs, or Telephone Support. Comparison of pre-test, 2 month post-test and 6 months follow-up with 131 participants found that after third party participation, the third party participant reported that the suicidal men had significantly less suicidal ideation, fewer suicide attempts, and less depressive symptoms. Family and friends had less psychological distress, used more positive coping mechanisms, and reported their communication with the suicidal man was more helpful. The Telephone Support was considered the most useful program.     

Things to Do Today . . . : A Daily Diary Study on Task Completion at Work

Relatively little is known about how goals in complex jobs are translated into action and how they are completed in real life settings. This study addressed the question to what extent planned work may actually be completed on a daily basis. The completion of daily work goals was studied in a sample of 878 tasks identified by 29 R&D engineers with the help of a daily diary. Multilevel analysis was used to analyse the joint effect of task attributes, perceived job characteristics, and personality attributes on the completion of planned work goals. At the level of task attributes, we found that priority, urgency, and lower importance were related to task completion, and at the individual level, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and time management training. Task completion was not related to task attractiveness, workload, job autonomy, planning, or perceived control of time. On connaît relativement peu de choses sur la manière dont les objectifs dans des tâches complexes sont traduites en action et sur la manière dont elles sont accomplies dans le cadre de la vie quotidienne. Cette étude a abordé la question de savoir dans quelle mesure les travaux prévus peuvent être effectivement achevés dans la vie quotidienne. Pour ce faire, un échantillon de 878 tâches a été identifié par 29 ingénieurs R&D à l’aide d’un journal quotidien. Une analyse multi niveau a été réalisée pour étudier l’effet conjoint des caractéristiques de la tâche et des caractéristiques de la personnalité sur l’accomplissement des objectifs d’un travail planifié. Au niveau des caractéristiques de la tâche, nous trouvons que l’accomplissement de la tâche est liéà la priorité, l’urgence et une importance basse et au niveau individuel à la conscience, la stabilitéémotionnelle et à la gestion du temps. L’accomplissement de la tâche n’est pas liéà son attrait, à la charge de travail, à l’autonomie au travail ou au contrôle du temps perçu.